Medicine & Health

SciFest 09 is festival where everyone can engage in science. The St. Louis Science Center’s SciFest 09, which runs through Oct. 11, brings together world-renowned scientists and experts to help participants see science in a new way. Washington University students and faculty will present sessions exploring everything from the science of baseball and the healing power of puppies to images of a brain at work and the bionics of hip replacements.

Spontaneous brain activity formerly thought to be “white noise” measurably changes after a person learns a new task, researchers at the School of Medicine and the University of Chieti in Italy have shown. The scientists also report that the degree of change reflects how well subjects have learned to perform the task.

Milbrandt Jeffrey D. Milbrandt has been named head of the Department of Genetics and the James S. McDonnell Professor at the School of Medicine. He brings a strength in basic and translational science to his new position and an appreciation of the expanding role of genetics in the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of disease.

A Washington University scientist has won a prestigious NIH Director’s Pioneer Award — one of only 18 given this year — to develop innovative ways to simultaneously monitor the activity of many neurons.

RobinsLee Nelken Robins, professor emeritus of social science in psychiatry at the School of Medicine, died peacefully at her home Sept. 25, 2009, following a long battle against cancer. Robins was a world leader in psychiatric epidemiology research and had worked in the Department of Psychiatry for more than 50 years.

A group of pregnant women who have asthma or allergies will get extra vitamin D as part of a study to determine if the vitamin can prevent their children from developing asthma.

Chronic sleep deprivation in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease makes Alzheimer’s brain plaques appear earlier and more often, researchers at the School of Medicine report online this week in Science Express.

Washington University in St. Louis has joined a group of leading research universities in launching Futurity (futurity.org), an online research channel covering the latest discoveries in science, engineering, the environment, health, and more.

The age at which a person takes a first drink may influence genes linked to alcoholism, making the youngest drinkers the most susceptible to severe problems.

PaciorkowskiResearchers at the School of Medicine and the University of Chicago have launched what is believed to be the first worldwide, online registry of children with infantile spasms, a severe type of epilepsy that affects babies in the first few months of life.